I know, I know, you have all been waiting for a fishing report and here it finally is. We cannot believe that 3 weeks of the fishing season has passed already. The weather was fantastic before the season started and sure enough, as soon as the season opened the weather turned cool. Go figure. The fishing on the other hand was absolutely HOT. Walleyes were plentiful in Ord River, Rainy Lake & in front of Jackfish Bay right from the start. Not much was happening out on the main lake at first but slowly you could see Ord River slowing and the some of the main lake areas improving. Ord Bay, East Bay, Camp Island, Twin Islands, Snake Pit, and Rainy Lake just to name a few are hitting Walleyes now at a pretty good pace. Minnows are the live bait of choice with nightcrawlers coming in a close second. Trolling crank baits have been producing some big Walleyes but have not caught the numbers of fish as live bait has. Depth of Walleyes have been in the 7-14 foot range. Pike have been nothing short of huge. I can truly say that guests have been catching Pike repeatedly in the 32-38 inch range with "eater snakes" harder to find. Don't get me wrong, this is a great problem to have. We have also cracked the 40 plus inch mark a few times already this season on Pike which is not unusual. Most of the Pike have been coming on live suckers but Mepps Spinners & Husky Jerks are working really well also. We can say with all confidence that this is the best start for Smallies and Perch since Linda and I have been at the lodge. Huge size and numbers of both Bass & Perch are common. We know the Smallie fisherie is one of the best in North America and so far we are proving this to be true. We already have topped the 20 inch mark on Bass and 17 to 19 inchers are becoming popular. Flukes, Tubes, & small Rattle Traps have been the bait of choice so far. We have tried Leeches but have not had as much success as of yet. They will kick in soon. As mentioned, Perch have been unbelievable in size and quantity. We normally don't even think about Perch until maybe mid to late June. What a bonus to see fisherman catching good numbers of Perch in addition to Walleye, Pike & Bass. Minnows & Crawlers have been working for Perch but seeing as how everyone is catching them we thought we would experiment with a very-unconventional bait to see if they continue to bite. This could be big news!
We also need to bring you up to speed on our MANOTAK MASTER ANGLER CONTEST 2011. The winners are so far: Mike Shulze - WI. May 21-28, Ray Ragsdale - MO. May 28-June 4, & Dave Beamon - NC June 4-11. We have changed the contest slightly for this year with a new grand prize that we think will challenge any fisherman to stay out and pound the water. We are still throwing in a few twists just to make it more interesting. I will post all of the winners pictures shortly.
We are still accepting names for "Lunches" new mate the Drake Mallard. Keep the names coming. She has been coming in less frequent as we believe she is nesting but I can usually call her from the dock in the evening and she will come and pay a visit and get her daily fix of bread. I did have an interesting question asked to me this week and that was why I was not feeding "Lunch" seasoned bread. While I was not amused at first I did have to admit this was brilliant. Maybe we should direct those briliant ideas toward catching more fish. EH?
Thats all for now. Stay tuned, more to come.
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